Friday's HOT MIC

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Officials in Manatee County, Florida are under fire after an interpreter for the deaf warned about pizza and monsters during an emergency briefing related to Hurricane Irma.

The interpreter, Marshall Greene, is a lifeguard for the county whose brother is deaf, according to the DailyMoth, a video news site that provides information via American Sign Language. Greene was used as the interpreter for a Sept. 8 press conference regarding the incoming storm and possible evacuations.

Members of the deaf community said Greene mostly signed gibberish, referencing "pizza," "monsters," and using the phrase "help you at that time to use bear big," during the event. Other information signed to viewers was incomplete, experts said.

Let's hope that this was an honest mistake and maybe the guy was just buckling from the pressure of the situation. If not, this is really, really embarrassing.

The Cassini spacecraft, one of the most successful missions in NASA history, ended today as its orbit decayed to the point that it plunged into Saturn at 70,000 MPH. But even as it was in its death throes, Cassini kept transmitting photos and data until the last possible second.

Cassini truly was a flagship mission. Powered by plutonium (which led to some protests when the probe launched in 1997), the $3.9 billion spacecraft slingshotted around Venus twice and Earth once before traveling on to Jupiter to accelerate enough to reach Saturn in 2004. The spacecraft traveled 4.9 billion miles (7.9 billion kilometers) during its mission, circled Saturn 293 times, discovered six moons and observed dozens more. It dropped the European Space Agency's Huygens probe on Titan, the first-ever landing in the outer solar system.

And even faced with imminent death, Cassini persevered. With scorching-hot temperatures searing its instruments, the hardy probe held on during the dive into Saturn. Spacecraft operations chief Julie Webster has proof. She told reporters today that Cassini's interior was a comfortable room temperature until the probe's signal went silent. And that signal itself lasted a full 30 seconds longer than anyone expected.

So, while facing the end, Cassini went out in a literal blaze of glory. And even after its science has fueled thousands of research studies, the mission's legacy will live on as more discoveries are sifted from the 635 gigabytes of data the probe collected.

"The Terrorist Attack That Failed to Terrify" is the headline of a New York Times op-ed by Ben Judah, letting everyone know what a big bad, badass he is because HE WASN'T SCARED BY THE LONDON TUBE BOMB!

Friday morning in London a terrorist failed. There were flames but no deadly blast at the Parsons Green Station on the London Underground subway system in this, the fourth terrorist attack in London and the fifth in Britain this year. Not only did the as-yet-unidentified terrorist fail because he bungled his bomb-making, he failed because he failed to terrify.

Yes, there were the jumbled tweets about a fire and stampedes. Then, the report of a “major incident” in which more than a score of people had been hospitalized. Eventually even, a claim of responsibility by the Islamic State. But very quickly, it all felt routine.

Here we go again: the politicians talking of London’s strength and the indomitable spirit of the Blitz — forever part of “our finest hour” when Britons were unbowed even as the Luftwaffe’s bombs rained at night. This was followed, yet again, by a brief Twitter cameo from Donald Trump, before he turned to attacking the American sports network ESPN.

Walking around Britain’s third-busiest train station, Liverpool Street, I found that the politicians had it all wrong. If the terrorist attack at Parsons Green had resulted in more than injuries, perhaps there would have been both fear here and its antidote, resilience. But I found no Blitz spirit at the station, which served as a shelter for thousands of East Enders during the air raids of World War II.

Not a single person I spoke to was standing strong against terrorism. They didn’t need to. Because they weren’t scared.

Judah is a super putz. And he's lucky no one punched him in the face when he asked if they were "scared." The people of London are not going to let on to a total stranger that they will be thinking about the terror attack the next time they take the tube.

Liberals ascribe any anti-terror policies to "fear." They claim that the beheaders don't scare them. They are brave. Those who want to do something about terrorism are fearful cowards.

It is not a question of "fear." But I will bet you dollars to donuts that when riders board the train for their morning commute, they are going to check the seats for unattended packages. That is the point of terrorism, Mr. Judah. It alters our consciousness. And while we might not be outwardly fearful, the assumptions upon which we base our safe, comfortable lives are just a little bit rattled every time a terrorist strikes.

Stephen-Tariq Nasheed is one of those ranting Twitter lefties about whom I would know nothing if people on our side didn't engage him so often. Also, as you pointed out, there is no way to get through to him about anything. His entire timeline is an alternative universe. Just a couple of hours ago he tweeted that there are "financial incentives to execute Black Americans with complete impunity." No one is breaking through that wall.

I know a lot of people think this kind of lunacy needs to be exposed and that's why they try to interact with him and others, but I've always been of the opinion that they seek the attention from the other side and we're just playing into their hands when we take the bait and attempt to "discuss" things. He's going to call me a racist no matter what I say, so I'm not going to give him the chance to put that into the universe. All we're doing is making him more famous than he deserves to be.

So, the city council of Dallas spent $600,000 removing this statue that was hurting or holding back no one. Their first crane broke, so they sent for a second crane....from Houston!! (I'm sure Houston had better used for it.) While en route to Dallas with the crane, they had a car accident and KILLED someone on the highway!!! All that because little snowflakes were offended at a statue of a man who's been dead since 1870.